The OPPO Reno 10x Zoom Review: Bezeless Zoom

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

We’ve had the Reno 10x in camera comparisons in previous articles, but as mentioned in the introduction of the device, Oppo was able to update its software over the last few months. The one area where there has been significant advancements in is in terms of low-light photograph and an apparent new night mode.

Previously, the original Night mode on the Reno was a dedicated mode one had to select to use. In newer firmware updates, the Reno now will automatically select a new kind of night mode in lower light conditions, and this is characterised by the camera app doing three quick shutter animations and sounds. We’ll see how this has changed, and how the new mode compares against the competition.

[ Reno 10x ]
[ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ] 
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

At first glance, the one thing that pops out in this shot is that it feels relatively flat. Indeed looking at the histogram of the image, it looks like the phone 20-30% of the highlights even though there’s a bright spotlights in the scene.

However looking closer at the rest of the shot, we’re seeing some actual impressive levels of detail retention that in fact rivals the best we’ve seen from Google, Huawei and Samsung.

[ Reno 10x ]
[ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

In the next shot the Reno’s new night mode is again extremely competitive. The one issue in this shot is that the phone is getting the colour temperature quite wrong, not properly capturing the orange light of the sodium street lamps. There are different levels of pure detail and noise reduction between all the different phones with night mode here, but the Oppo does belong amongst the group of phones that now produce quite detailed night shots.

[ Reno 10x ] [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ] 
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

In the next shot again, I think that algorithmically in terms of producing a brighter image out of several low-light results, the new Oppo firmware is extremely competitive. There’s still issue such as again the colour balance being off here.

[ Reno 10x ]
[ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ] 
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

The next shot is something we’ve tested in the past with the Reno 10x, however at the time the phone couldn’t capture very much of this scene. Today, at least when looking at the thumbnail, the Reno is able to capture significant amount of light rivalling other phones. When looking into closer detail however we see the result is extremely noisy. Investigating the EXIF shows that the shot seemingly was done at ISO1408, which I didn’t even know was possible out of the IMX586.

[ Reno 10x ] [ S10+ (E) ] - [ S10+ (S) ]
[ Xperia 1 ] - [ P30 Pro ] - [ Mi9 ]
[ G8 ] - [ BlackShark 2 ] - [ RedMagic 3 ] - [ Pixel 3 ]

Finally, going even lower light and indoors, the phone abandons any attempt to get a good capture. It seems it’s at this point where the sensor’s physical capabilities have reached an end and the software doesn’t know how to improve things anymore.

Low-light Conclusion

The one thing we came to a conclusion to today is the fact that Oppo has now itself onto the list of vendors who have proper computational photography night modes. Oppo’s implementation seems to be able to retain a lot of detail of the natural scene, in this regard competing against what we’ve seen from Google, Huawei and Samsung. It’s still lacking in terms of colour balance, and in certain conditions it does fall behind. These latter scenarios is I think just a limitation of the IMX586 – although again Huawei/Honor has also shows that’s possible to get more out of the sensor.

Overall, the Reno 10x does adequately in low-light, which is something great to see as it means that future devices from the vendor will only continue to iterate and improve upon the current results.